


More Dreadful to the Strong

by the_rck



Category: Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: Captivity, F/M, Magic, Non-Consensual Bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8773996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: She laughed. “I was going to kill you, but I haven't had a prince before.” She ran her fingertips across his chest, and his shirt shredded under her nails.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Savageseraph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageseraph/gifts).



> Title is from Louise Labe's sonnet VI.

Phillip wished he'd paid more attention to what his mother had told him about Laudrien and the Princess Aurora. The woman who had him chained to the wall was obviously someone he ought to recognize. At least, he couldn't imagine that she didn't have a long history. No one who carried herself with that much certainty of power would let herself be unknown.

 _And she has magic._ He couldn't let himself forget that. _She wasn't after me as me, either, just a man, any man, looking for that girl._ He let himself wonder what the witch had against the girl. The girl he'd met had had no inkling of danger, not of danger like this, and he couldn't believe-- couldn't bear to believe-- that the girl had deliberately deceived him. 

“Such a handsome boy.”

He recognized his captor’s voice immediately. He rose to his feet and just managed to keep from flinching as she took his chin in her hand. _How did I miss her coming in?_

She was taller than he was, and he wasn't sure if the horns she wore were decorative. _Or if they're actually her._ Her features were even and ageless.

He met her eyes, doing his best to show no fear. _No!_ He wrenched his gaze away and fought not to vomit, not to think about what he’d seen there.

She laughed. “I was going to kill you, but I haven't had a prince before.” She ran her fingertips across his chest, and his shirt shredded under her nails.

He inhaled sharply. _She's old. Ancient. Not a witch, not mortal. One of the Fair Folk? But the manacles are iron. An angry pagan goddess? A demon? Does it matter?_ He tried to pray but found his mind entirely blank.

“Oh, yes.” She smiled. “I can do the same to flesh. If I want to. How much can you bear before you scream? How many times can I make you forget so that I can break you again?”

She laughed loud and long at the expression on Phillip’s face as he realized that, if she could make him forget, this might not be the first time she’d-- He couldn't bring himself to guess what she planned.

He stood as straight and proud as he could and looked at her face without meeting her eyes. “My father will pay any ransom.” 

“I have no need for your father’s toys and baubles.” She flicked her fingers against his cheek and smiled when he flinched. “Gold buys nothing in my lands. All I want right now is to hear you scream.”

 _Torture then._ He tried not to think of things he'd seen or guessed at, either in war or in his father's dungeons. _No one knows where I am. No one will tell my father. Or my mother._ “Will you kill me eventually?” He tried to ask as if the answer didn't matter.

She tilted his face upward and pressed her lips to his.

He hesitated, wondering if he'd do better to fight or to yield. In the end, he did neither, just stood unresponsive.

She sank teeth into his lower lip, and he couldn't hold back a sound of pain. When she pulled back, he could see his blood on her lips and taste it in his own mouth. She licked her lips. “Think about that for a while. We'll come back to it.” 

She took two steps back so that she could look him up and down. “You should only be wearing chains.” She pointed at each piece of Phillip's clothing in turn. As she did, each burst into flame and turned rapidly to ash.

He barely even felt heat until she got to his feet. Then, she smiled and crooked a finger. His boots began to burn and his feet to blister. He managed to get one boot off quickly, sending it flying across the room, but the other was harder because his now bare other foot had no protection. He managed it in the end, but now it hurt to stand. He wasn’t willing to sit again, to put himself so far beneath her, so he set his jaw and endured.

She came close again. “You're pretty. You have that. For as long as it lasts.” She kissed him again but didn't bite this time. One of her hands moved to his groin and began caressing him. “I might hurt you less if you please me.”

 _Or you might not._ Phillip didn't want to think what she meant when she spoke of breaking him. _But-- could I? That wouldn’t hurt._ He didn’t entirely believe that, but he very much wanted to.

“Do you know how to please a woman?” 

The sharpness of the question startled him. He flushed. He considered not answering. He considered lying. In the end, though, he couldn't think of anything to be gained by either. “Some of my mother's ladies made sure of that.” They'd been much better than the whore his father had paid to take his virginity. That poor girl had pretended that he was the best she'd ever had. Even at that age he'd known she was lying. He just hadn't thought it mattered. Not then.

_Now it might._

The caress and the question made it pretty clear what she wanted from him. Part of him knew that it couldn’t be anything like that simple. He had some idea of the ways men could hurt women with sex. He was less clear on what she might be able to do. _I don’t-- She’s not human. I don’t even know what’s under her clothes._ The prospect brought terror and nausea. He tugged on the chains again. There was no more give than there had been the last thirty times. _I'm going to have to. Whether I want to or not._ He forced a smile. “If that's what you want.” He tried to let his face and voice promise her pleasure.

“It is. Eventually.” She pressed her fingertips against his balls. 

He could feel the nails just starting to cut skin, and he gulped air. He almost managed not to scream when her talons pierced his flesh, but it hurt more than he had ever imagined something could.

She smeared his blood on his chest. “No one's ever hurt you, have they? All of this will be new.” She stroked the side of his face with the back of one hand. “That makes it sweeter. It's not something I generally get.”

Phillip had had bruises from training, plenty of those, and had even been injured once or twice while fighting bandits, just never badly, and this was different. It was intimate and personal and intentional. _And it’s going to get worse._ His imagination balked at the notion of ‘worse.’

A wave of her hand altered the room from cell to bedroom, and Phillip felt despair at how casually she used magic. _As if it were infinite and easy and--_ He closed his eyes for a moment then forced himself to look at her again.

“Later,” she said. “Later, I will want to be comfortable.” She showed her teeth, and Phillip wasn’t at all surprised to see that they were sharply pointed. “I don’t think you will be.” She laughed. “Unless you discover that you get off on it.” She pinched and twisted one of his nipples, and he wondered vaguely, through the pain, why he didn’t feel her nails. “You might. I hope you don’t, but you might.”

He realized that he’d never actually been afraid before.


End file.
